


Settle Down

by strifery



Series: Symbiotic [3]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, Slow Build, Slow Burn, side character development because i have rights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22986493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strifery/pseuds/strifery
Summary: In the span of his life, Lio Fotia has been a prodigy, a renegade, a symbol, and even dabbled at being a martyr (he doesn't recommend that last one). In the husk of a smoldering city, he finds that there's one more thing left for him to be:A good roommate.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Series: Symbiotic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1507169
Comments: 11
Kudos: 126





	Settle Down

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is dedicated to gingi, who waited so patiently while i wrote about literally everything but this :'3
> 
> \---
> 
> Howdy! It's been a while! Welcome to the long-awaited prequel of Symbiotic! Also known as "Lio Fotia Fell In Love First And Here's How". 
> 
> Tags and rating are subject to change as the fic goes on for post-confession content. :3c I'll keep you posted on how that stuff will be uploaded as things go on! 
> 
> Please enjoy, firebugs!

Tomorrow, there will be hearings. Tomorrow, there will be newscasts and journalists and microphones hanging off his every word. Tomorrow, he will face daylight without the familiar blur of color and crackling flames –– and the running, god, _so much_ running –– for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. 

But tonight, it’s midnight and Lio Fotia has been cold for seventeen hours. Twenty-one if he counts the four hours he and Galo spent passed out in the Rescuemobile, benched at the captain’s orders. Had Lio not been nearly dead on his feet, he probably would’ve put up more of a fight, his pride bellowing at him not to take orders from the enemy so easily. But then again, there wasn’t really an enemy anymore, was there? At least, not a single one he could point a definitive finger at.

And to be entirely fair, compared to the cave floor he’d slept on last, the truck bench looked like a goddamn cloud. 

A blooming soreness at the back of his neck reminds Lio that a block of heat-resistant steel is not, in fact, a cloud or a decent bed for that matter, and he rolls onto his side as he sinks further into the cushions of Galo’s couch. 

Galo. Galo Thymos. The charming idiot who seems to exercise his voice as much as his body (not that Lio has been _staring_ , per se, it’s just when you save the world with a shirtless guy you tend to notice a delt or two). 

Galo is the reason Lio is here in more ways than the obvious one, the kiss that saved his life — for starters, he’s why he’s literally here in a tiny downtown apartment, buried under no less than four blankets as fat beams of blue moonlight stream in through the blinds. Galo hadn’t hesitated to open his home to Lio as the surviving ex-Burnish were funneled into bunks at the Burning Rescue station. By the time they’d emptied only a third or so of the Prometech engine’s cells, bedrolls were being organized on the floors and calls were being made to precincts throughout the city to find space for the others; Lio wasn’t about to occupy a valuable spot there just to suit his own needs, no matter how much Gueira and Meis insisted they could make room for him on their pallet. 

“You could crash at my place,” Galo had volunteered with a yawn that evening, still recovering after their mandatory moment of rest, throughout which he’d been out like a sack of bricks. “It’s not much, and to be honest, I’ve got no clue if it’s still standing, but if it is, my door’s open!” 

“That’s a pretty big ‘if’, Thymos,” Lio had replied, his voice a hoarse ghost of itself. 

He had no idea how Galo had the energy to grin at him the way he did, sunny and carefree as they rolled bandages to go in kits for the Burnish (ex-Burnish, he hated to remind himself) being transferred to other stations. He rolled the gauze a bit too tight with a slight pang of resentment; a large part of Lio didn’t want to let anyone who’d been in that engine out of his sight, the survival instinct screaming under his skin insisting that no one could look after his people the way he could. But he knew better than to believe that wholeheartedly — though the final burnout of the Promare had thankfully restored any bones and tissue dissolved into ashes, there was no denying that his people were exhausted, dehydrated, and likely on the brink of starvation. Even if he’d still had his flames, no blaze in the world could conjure food and medicine from thin air. 

And besides, if anyone were going to be understanding if he shot up at ass-crack o’clock in the morning to race to the station and check on them, it would be Galo. It helps that his apartment is within walking distance (because _of course_ it is). 

The clock on Galo’s microwave reads 12:25am and Lio officially thinks it fitting to deem this ass-crack o’ clock, but he doesn’t feel like running anywhere. He’s _cold,_ dammit, the light of the moon somehow making the room feel even more icy as it rivers across the floor. 

He shivers despite his makeshift burrow of assorted blankets, tensing until the cold climbing up his body wanes away, the intensity of it almost painful. Lio has been trembling since they landed the Galo de Lion, even after being layered in what felt like every Burning Rescue member’s jacket at once — his fellow ex-Burnish are in similar states, but not like this. Their tremors don’t seem quite as...lingering, for lack of a better term. He wonders, not for the first time today, if this is an unfortunate side effect of a week spent fossilized in ice on a body no longer able to melt away the aftershocks. He fidgets, the goosebumps prickling on his legs rubbing unpleasantly against each other.

Lio _itches_ , and not just from the rough wool of what is obviously an old, old blanket of Galo’s. The night is uncomfortably still around him, the city noise he expected sobered by the destruction in the streets. He closes his eyes and tries to listen for noise the way he did in the desert — the chirping of crickets and occasional animal howl were always more comforting sleep aids than overwhelming silence. Activity meant all was well; silence meant some kind of disturbance to the natural order, typically with four wheels and plenty of guns. 

Gritting his teeth, Lio strains to listen for something, anything: the familiar whisper of a motorcycle engine purrs down the street below, and Lio hears it disappear in the direction of the fire station. Lio thinks of the way he’d overheard most of Galo’s coworkers claiming overnight shifts while he and Galo himself had been shoved out the door towards a full night’s rest. He snorts half-heartedly into the empty air. Fat chance of that happening for him any time soon. 

The cycle is the only noise for the next five, ten, going on twenty minutes, and Lio has redirected his attention to watching splotches of color swim behind his eyelids. He’s something close to sleepy when another shudder rattles through his body, violent and vicious as it ices over his bones all over again. His eyes snap back open, a singular angry ray of moonlight falling over his face as if the night itself is against Lio finding any peace. 

He rides out the wave of cold that rockets through his body, biting back a strangled hiss. Short, sharp nails dig into the soft skin of his arms as he wraps around himself, the chill finally subsiding until he’s left to tremble and chase whatever warmth he can in the divot he’s left in the couch cushions. He doesn’t recognize his voice as it escapes him in weak bursts through chattering teeth. There’s a lot about himself he doesn’t recognize right now. 

An unhelpful voice in his head (that didn’t used to sound as loud as it does now) reminds him of just how much Kray Foresight would love to see him like this, and he buries his nails even harder into his skin, drawing his knees to his chest.

“Lio?” A voice questions from above him, the softest Lio’s heard it in the forty-eight hours he’s known its owner. 

The gentle shuffle of bare feet across the floor is a welcome break in the silence as Galo approaches the couch, his untamed crest of blue hair half-flattened against his head as he leans over to look down at the ex-Burnish leader. Lio doesn’t bother unfolding himself from his position to sit up; at this point, he’s worked too hard to build up the imprint of body heat he’s left in the cushions to care about any pleasantries. Bedhead aside, Galo looks about as awake as he feels, his eyes alert and surprised as he gives the smaller man a once-over. 

“You alright out here?”

Lio doesn’t look at him, staring into the stitches of the upholstery. To his relief, the frigid chill drains out of his body just enough for his voice not to shake as he answers. 

“About as much as I can be.” 

Galo tilts his head. “Can’t sleep?” 

Lio spares him a glance and grunts, a low and frustrated confirmation. Galo sighs, running a hand through his hair; part of it begins to stick out again, segmented strangely by his fingers. 

“Me neither. I think it might’ve been that nap we took earlier.” Lio can think of about three hundred other reasons, but he just grunts again. Under his blankets, he begins wrenching his hands from around his arms, his skin stinging as he lifts his nails away one at a time. _Shit,_ he thinks sourly, resisting the urge to rub away the pain. There’s no way he didn’t break the skin, his body now a delicate, disposable thing for the first time in years. 

Galo, for his part, doesn’t seem to notice, wandering off towards the kitchen as Lio rolls onto his back, careful not to create any openings in his little pocket of warmth. Glass jars rattle against one another as Galo opens the fridge, flooding the joined space with light. Lio watches as Galo’s shadow distorts across the ceiling, the outline of his hair making him look weirdly rooster-like. 

“You’re hungry?” Lio asks.

“You’re _not?”_ Galo questions back, and Lio doesn’t answer right away; it’s been hours since they last ate, gratefully inhaling the greasy cheeseburgers Varys tossed into their laps while hunched over their in-progress med kits. It’s not like Lio’s a stranger to going long periods without food. Hell, a week ago, eating twice in one day was a rare stroke of luck. Three times, and he was in the lap of luxury. Those had just been the rules of his world, and he had learned to adapt.

But Lio’s in a new world now; when he closes his eyes, he can still see the planet awash in flame, lit up like a newborn star. He supposes the discomfort weighing heavy on his chest is what he gets for following an idiot into space: now he gets to deal with the consequences of being alien. 

And in this new world, when he sits up to peek at Galo as he rummages through the fridge, his stomach lets out a greedy, miserable growl. Galo laughs as he pulls out a carton of milk and squints in an effort to read the expiration date.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He unscrews the cap and takes a tentative sniff; from the way his face scrunches immediately, Lio can guess that it’s not as fresh as he expected. The real horror sets in, however, when Galo immediately turns and begins walking towards the couch.

“Hey,-”

“No,” Lio answers before he can even ask, flopping back onto the couch and out of Galo’s line of sight. Galo frowns.

“C’mon, Lio, I can never tell when milk’s gone bad on my own! It always kinda stinks to me.” 

Lio doesn’t have to look at the taller man to know that he’s getting the full force of his puppy-dog pout — it’s the same face that had him wasting precious limited time during combat forging “cooler” armor for a giant robot and turning steel scraps into Galo’s...unconventional weapon of choice. Lio can’t tell what’s more pitiful, the expression itself or the fact that he keeps falling for it. 

_It’s just to make him stop,_ he tells himself as he sits up again, snatching the carton away from Galo, whose pout quirks into a tiny, self-satisfied smile. _Indulging him is faster than dealing with his begging._

  
He isn’t sure who he’s trying to mentally justify his actions to, but it definitely doesn’t work on himself as he gets a whiff of the carton’s contents and instantly regrets it. Lio’s certainly smelled _worse_ , having to hide out where he could on the road, but that doesn’t mean he enjoyed any aspect of the experience, let alone is keen on ingesting anything that smells that level of foul _._

Lio shakes his head. “I can’t remember the last time I had milk, but I don’t think it’s supposed to smell like that.”

Galo wilts, taking the carton back and heading for the sink. 

“Aw, I really wanted some cereal…” 

Lio coughs into one of the blankets, huffing through his nose as he tries to push the lingering smell out of his system. Galo sighs as he dumps out the spoiled contents, flicking on the garbage disposal before the smell has a chance to waft through the entire room. 

“I guess that’s what happens when you’re out of the house for a week,” Galo continues, tossing aside the now empty milk carton. “I guess I’ve gotta make a grocery run all over again.” His plume of a shadow appears on the ceiling once more as he opens the fridge again, moving things around as he checks for other perishables. 

“That’s bad...that’s bad...is that…?” The metal sound of a lid unscrewing echoes in the silence. A moment later: “Oh god, that’s _definitely_ bad.” Lio raises an eyebrow.

“If you were gone for a week, why’d you get so many groceries just to leave them at home?” Irritation stabs at Lio’s chest as he watches Galo pull expired food from his fridge, his survival brain hating the firefighter for wasting so much food so carelessly. Galo, for his part, simply shrugs. 

“It’s not like I _knew_ I was gonna be locked up in a cell for a week, give me a break.” He pulls a mold-spotted block of cheese from the back of a shelf. “Aw man, not the cheese too!” 

Lio freezes, this impact not from a bullet but piercing him through all the same. 

“You were...what?” 

The light from the fridge makes the shadows dancing across Galo’s eyes look deep and cavernous, as though Lio could look too closely within them and find something he isn’t supposed to see. He rubs at the back of his neck almost sheepishly. 

“Oh, uh, I guess I never mentioned it...” he begins lamely before starting over, clearing his throat. “Kray, he, uh...threw me in jail.” Another cough, another aversion of sky blue eyes as Galo pretends to study a jar of mustard. “I wasn’t cool with the whole spaceship thing, _obviously,_ so when I said I’d find some other way to stop the magma he said some stuff about me...” Galo trails off, but Lio catches the word “eyesore” as it’s mumbled under his breath. Galo closes the refrigerator door, and moonlight takes over the space as he gathers the expired food in his arms. 

“When did this happen?” Lio questions carefully, forcing his voice not to immediately betray the instinctual flare of anger that licks through his body at the mention of the soon-to-be-former (he hopes, _god,_ he hopes) governor. 

Various jars and bits of packaging crash against the floor as Galo dumps the food into a trash bag, his eyes flitting up to meet Lio’s for the first time in a few minutes. Lio wants to search them for signs that he’s pushing too far, that he’s teetering on the edge of their tentative acquaintanceship. He wants an excuse not to know, because the last thing he needs is yet another reason to question why he didn’t kill Kray Foresight when he had the chance. He doesn’t get any signs as Galo elaborates.

“After we talked. In the cave. I went back to return that medal I’d been wearing.” Lio blinks at that, genuinely surprised. “He told me he had something to show me, and that’s when I found out about the ship and the engine and Aina’s sister...then down in the lab he, uh, had one of his goons…” 

Galo falters a bit before shaking his head, cutting himself off. “Y’know what, it doesn’t matter. It happened and all, but I got out! And now that I’m out, I’m _hungry._ ” 

Galo’s eyes crinkle as he smiles, and Lio knows immediately that the larger man is dancing around the subject as fast as he can, but he doesn’t have the energy to pry tonight. Besides, who is he to mine for someone else’s secrets? He’s pretty sure he hasn’t even told Galo his _age,_ let alone where he’s been over the last week. (Lio isn’t too sure of that last answer himself; his vague memories of hot pink magma and a smoking caldera aren’t exactly the best landmarks.)

Lio slumps down to rest his head on the back of the couch, his blankets bundling around his shoulders. 

“I could eat,” he finally concedes. He spares a glance at the clock — it’s already 12:53am. His brow furrows as he looks to the trash bag on the floor. “Uh...do you have anything left?” 

Galo waves dismissively. “Not really, but the corner store down the street’s probably open 24 hours.” Galo looks down at himself, taking in his appearance. He’s shirtless, as usual, but his loud orange uniform pants have long since been shed in favor of a pair of light grey sweatpants that hang dangerously low on his hips. Excess fabric pools around his feet, softening the sound of his footsteps as he pads through the apartment, turning down the hall towards what Lio assumes is his bedroom. 

A warm triangle of yellow light spills out into the hallway as Galo leaves the door to his room open, interrupted only by his shadow darting back and forth as he hunts around for some clothes to throw on. 

“I hope you don’t mind something fast,” he calls. “It’s just the only thing I can think of that’s open this late.” Lio shakes his head before he remembers that Galo can’t see him. He can’t help but wonder if the firefighter had expected him to follow him into his room. 

“It’s fine,” Lio calls back. He’s lived off of the generous convenience store fare of lukewarm burritos and instant mac and cheese for years now; one more night wouldn’t kill him. In fact, he knows it won’t just be one more night — the familiarity of greasy junk food calls to him like an anchor, reminding him that he’s still himself in this strange new world.

Another shiver ripples up Lio’s spine as his blankets displace while he stands, the night air sinking cold fangs into every exposed patch of skin. 

Lio had protested when Galo offered to snag him a shirt in his size back at the station, unable to accept the offer when he could hear the chattering teeth of his fellow Burnish. So, after a quick raid of his closet, Galo had presented him with the clothes currently drowning his small frame: a dark long-sleeved shirt that Lio’s almost sure was a gift from the tags still hanging from it, a pair of droopy leggings, and a Burning Rescue hoodie that Lio has to admit, despite still not knowing where he stands with the institution, is one of the softest things he’s ever touched. Lio now yanks the loose leggings up from where they threaten to fall past his hips and tries not to think about the size of the thighs that stretched the garment to this point.

He fails only somewhat miserably as those same thighs come striding into the hallway, a pair of dark jeans suctioned handsomely around them as they carry Galo back into the living room, the larger man slinging a jacket over his shoulders and tossing a second onto the back of the couch. 

Lio absently registers that this is only the second time he’s seen the firefighter wear a shirt; he blames his sudden fixation on Galo’s appearance on exhaustion and starts feeling between the couch cushions for his discarded gloves.

▲▼▲

Galo’s extra jacket is way too big on Lio, just like everything else, but its warmth is welcome — even with the relative balm of spring hanging in the night air, the crumbling bowl of the Promepolis skyline allows all sorts of breezes to come racing down the street, flooding into the city from the surrounding desert. Lio’s shadow warps on the sidewalk as the wind tosses the ends of the jacket around, his hair whipping into his eyes from every direction. 

The walk itself should only take them about ten minutes, but the creepy glow of the distant gas station in the empty darkness admittedly has the pair walking a little faster. Most of the street lamps are either barely hanging on or blown out entirely, overheated to bursting by the city’s brush with armageddon. They got lucky; Galo’s apartment building still stands firm, and so does most of the area around it. His is one of the few districts still with a steady supply of power, the fortified underground lines upset but not entirely uprooted by the crash of the Parnassus. 

“They’ll probably start rerouting the power tomorrow,” Galo says conversationally, his gaze drifting down the street to a stretch of pitch-black windowed buildings. At the edge of the block, the surviving lamplight tapers off as if stopped by an invisible wall; under the wind, the two can just barely identify the hum of a generator.

“I thought they were working on that tonight?” Lio questions, his sleepy memory recalling the other blueish-haired firefighter — Remi, he thinks his name is — mentioning electricity, among about a thousand other things. He must be wrong, though, because Galo shakes his head.

“They are, but not for residential areas. Not yet, anyway. Tonight everyone’s running around getting stuff going again for the places with highest priority, like hospitals and stuff.” 

At the mention of hospitals, Lio pictures his refugees leaving smudges of ash against cold white beds, trembling as blood is drawn and getting strange technicolor medicines poured down their throats. He shudders, the rattle of his body thankfully shaking him out of his paranoia before his imagination can run too wild. 

“Right,” he finally responds, and he can tell by the puzzled silence that falls between him and Galo that his answer came far later than it should’ve. He clears his throat awkwardly.

“So,” Lio tries, “What do you normally, uh, get? From the convenience store, I mean.” 

It’s a dumb question from inception to the moment it leaves his lips — he’s pretty sure corner stores are the same no matter where you go. He should know; he’s certainly raided his fair share of them. If Galo notices, he doesn’t seem to care, bringing his arms up and around his neck as they cross onto the next block. 

“Mm, I usually try to stay pretty on top of what I eat, but it’s not like I can really trust a gas station to have anything, y’know...fresh?” 

Lio nods, understanding exactly what he means. He and Meis once found an unbruised banana in a backwoods mini mart and almost wept tears of joy. 

“So!” Galo continues brightly, “If I’m going to the corner store, I’m gettin’ trash! On _purpose!”_ His eyes go starry with the same relentless conviction he brings to saving actual human lives, and Lio’s only a little bit concerned. “I’m a hot dog kind of guy myself, but sometimes if you come in early enough, they’ve got these little egg biscuit things with— you know that color cheese gets when you know it’s gonna make you feel like garbage?”

Lio thinks for a moment to the last time he felt like garbage (other than this morning) and the culprit behind it, a packet of powdered instant cheese that Gueira had bet a honey bun Lio couldn’t swallow in one sitting. The honey bun had been worth it. Rushing out into the desert night to dig a hole to shit in? Not so much.

“That orangey stuff that gets all rubbery when it’s cold?” he guesses, and Galo snaps his fingers.

 _“Exactly._ I knew you were one of my people.” Galo says it so casually, as if they’ve known each other for years and not hours. 

If he wanted to, Lio could find offense in the casual statement, find cause to remind the fireman that nothing about their histories overlapped enough for either of them to earn that kind of sentiment from the other.

He doesn’t want to. Instead, Lio shoves his hands in the pockets of Galo’s jacket and continues forward. He’s too damn cold to start a fight. 

"What about you?" Galo questions after another moment of rambling about cheese. Lio shrugs.

"I like what I can get my hands on and easily feeds a crowd. Stuff you can still stomach if it goes stale, or can carry around in a hurry." A rambling part of Lio's brain almost adds "easy to steal", but he reels in the thought before it can get to the tip of his tongue. To his surprise, Galo shakes his head, as if he'd heard it anyway.

"Nah, man, I'm not asking about what you normally eat. I'm talking about what you _like."_ When Lio raises an eyebrow, Galo grins and pats one of his back pockets. "I've got you covered tonight, so go crazy! Well, maybe not _crazy_ crazy, I still gotta see if any of the banks survived..."

Galo fumbles around for his wallet for a moment before flipping through a thin stack of bills. He makes a satisfied noise as he counts.

"Five, fifteen, twenty, forty— yeah, okay! You can go twenty dollars crazy. Is that gonna be enough? 'Cause you can have more, I can make do with ten and you get thirty..." Galo trails off, and as he meets Lio’s gaze, the smaller man can hardly stand to look at him head-on. 

Whoever invented the phrase “wearing your heart on your sleeve” had clearly never met the ridiculousness that is Galo Thymos — Lio reasons that Galo must go sleeveless too often for his heart to settle there, instead detouring to pack all his emotions into his eyes. The unfiltered, raw _care_ swimming in their crystal blue now is too much for his weary brain to absorb, and he sacrifices a single warm hand to the wind to wave dismissively.

"Twenty dollars crazy sounds like more than enough." He clears his throat, shoving his hand back into his jacket and fidgeting with the soft lining. The tiny crescent indents his nails left in his arm sting as his muscles flex. “Thank you…” he adds, his soft voice nearly lost to the howling breeze. 

Galo manages to hear him anyway and makes a clicking noise with his tongue.

“Don’t mention it! It’s not like you have any cash of your own, right? I’m not just gonna let you starve — nobody’s that heartless!” Lio quirks an eyebrow as his mind conjures a laundry list of people that certainly are that heartless, starting and ending with the man they put behind bars an afternoon ago, but he’s in no hurry to spend the energy to think about him, let alone remind Galo. The fresh mental image of the earnest firefighter locked in a cell for a week is enough to make his blood boil all over again. 

Lio’s heart rabbits under his skin, awakened by the familiar bloom of rage through his chest. He can’t do much here; he can’t do much _anymore,_ his anger orphaned on Earth by the flames to show itself in nothing but a kicked trash can or a thrown rock or something. Before he can try either of those things, Galo slings a conversational arm around his shoulder, drawing him close with an unwavering smile as he chatters on. 

“Bet I can’t guess what your favorite food is! You may look fancy on the outside, but deep down I bet it’s something normal, like...chicken strips! Or burgers! You ate that burger pretty fast at the station…ooh, ooh! Wait! Is it pizza? Dude, if you like pizza, I know this _great_ place-“

Galo steers him towards the convenience store now, diligently using the crosswalk despite the deserted street. The animal of Lio’s heart quiets, instead listening with interest as his ear is pressed against Galo’s ribcage. 

“I like pizza,” Lio tries, latching onto the last word he can actually process the taller man saying. He _does_ like pizza — it’s been ages since he’s had anything fresh from the oven, but he can’t deny the way his stomach stirs in interest at the idea of a restaurant meal. 

Galo’s thousand watt grin is blinding as the light of the gas station casts his features in sharp, vivid clarity. His arm leaves Lio’s shoulder as he moves to open the door for him, an unnecessary but nonetheless sweet gesture that almost makes up for the shiver that ripples through Lio as his body heat leaves him.

“Oh man, have I got you _covered_ on that front. There’s this little place a few blocks from the station that made a custom flavor just for us, it’s got all the best toppings and it’s always cooked _just right_ -” Galo cuts himself off, blue eyes clouding over with a pleasant haziness as he lets out a dreamy sigh. “It’s just one of those things where you never forget your first time, y’know?”

A snicker shoots out of Lio, quick, unexpected, and audibly more of a sneeze than a laugh. “You sure we’re still talking about pizza?”

Galo shakes his head and tuts, as if he were enduring the questions of a child. A bell chimes as they cross the threshold into the mini mart and Lio jumps, the hair on the back of his neck raising as his eyes dart around warily; he’s not used to being in these places when they’re actually populated. A warm weight snakes back around his shoulders — Galo’s arm, drawing him to his side again. 

“You’ll understand in due time, grasshopper,” he muses sagely, and Lio wants to elbow his ribs the way he does with Gueira. He doesn’t, still somehow careful of crossing boundaries with the man who’s touched him more in the span of ten minutes than most people get to after years. 

Galo squeezes his shoulder, as if aware of his thoughts, and a sweet warmth seems to bleed from Galo’s palm through his clothes to settle into his bones. “You’re in good hands, Lio Fotia. Just you wait, I’m gonna show you the best this city has to offer!”

Lio laughs again, a fragile sound that floats out of him only a little bit without his permission. 

“Starting with a gas station?” Galo beams.

“Starting with a gas station!” he repeats boisterously, waving down the sleepy-eyed employee behind the counter with the arm that isn’t holding Lio, the scar-tissued skin peeking red just over the edge of his jacket sleeve. “ _Garçon,_ two of your finest hot dogs, please!”


End file.
